. LUJ} 



K 980 
W3 
opy 1 



1 



Purchasing Supplies 

for an 

Office Building 




"By 

J. M. WALSHE 

Manager State National Bank Building 
Little Rock, Arkansas 



©CI. A 2 729 87 




Purchasing Supplies 

for an 

Office Building 

by J. M. WALSHE 

Manager State National Bank Building 
Little Rock, Arkansas 



When the first proposal to manage an office 
building was made to me, I was in the Elec- 
tric Contracting business in Texarkana, and 
though the proposition came from a friend, 
who I am sure now, had only my interests at 
heart, I hesitated and debated the question 
in my own mind for some time, trying to 
see that it wasn't a joke (I had never heard 
of a Building Manager), and that such a posi- 
tion was not less dignified than the one I 
thought I was entitled to. After some close 
consultation with other friends, I decided to 
accept the "job." I was bundled off to St. 
Louis to look over the buildings there, and 
to gather as many ideas as possible on the 
systematization, operation, and maintenance 
of an office building. It was there I met a 
very reserved manager, who immediately, 
through his bearing and manner, relieved me 
of any sense of a building manager being a 
joke. By a little diplomacy, and showing 
that I was really interested in the matter, 
this quiet man, Mr. Guy Wright of the Wright 
Building, St. Louis, and his able corps of as- 

Capyrtg-Jit, 1910, by J. M. Walshe 



sistants opened up their wells of information, 
and in a week I had absorbed more concerning 
the management and maintenance of an office 
building than I ever knew existed. Needless to 
say I went back to Texarkana with an entirely 
different feeling toward the position of Build- 
ing Manager than when I left. 

My first task was the systematization of the 
operation end of the building, and in about a 
month I had been able to establish a very 
good order of things, which proved most etn- 
cient. 

Passing over this initial period to the time 
when I had an opportunity to take up the pur- 
chasing of the supplies used in the building. I 
will try to tell you what I found and how it 
was remedied; but before going into the de- 
tails of this matter, I will ask you to bear in 
mind that one of the things we have to con- 
tend with in the Southwest that is most dis- 
couraging, is the high rate of freight we have 
to pay, and you will note all through my paper 
that the prices are based on this freight rate, 
which has been taken into consideration, and 
undoubtedly you who live near manufacturing 
centers, and in the East, will be able to gel- 
much better results in the price line than we 
have, on this account. 

On my daily rounds of inspection, I noticed 
a great quantity of toilet paper on the floors 
of the toilet rooms which led me to investi- 
gate the cause. I found that these sheets 
were pulled off in bunches, either maliciously 
or abstractedly, or that the paper rack in one 
toilet would be empty, and the next man in 
would grab a handful of paper out of the other 
toilet, and leave what was left on the tank or 
throw it on the floor. To try to overcome 
this latter part of the loss, I had the janitor 
leave an extra bundle of paper in each toilet 
for such an emergency, thinking that the 
tenants would be glad to put it in the rack 
when the other paper was out, but Oh, my, 



Cost 




>er roll. 


Total. 


6 c 


27c 


6 c 


24c 


8%c 


lie 



how mistaken 1 was. The extra roll was either 
stolen, thrown in the closet, or the wrapper 
taken off and littered over the floor. I looked 
hard for some system to overcome this, and 
sent for samples of several makes of racks, 
and after carefully looking into the merits 
and demerits of each and every one, I applied 
a test which gave them all equal advantages 
in showing their economy and efficiency. I 
selected a toilet room on a floor that was 
leased to a large railroad company. I put 
on one rack at a time, and kept a close record 
of each for thirty days, and I give you here the 
results of that test: 

Rolls 
Name. per mo. 

Springfield 4^4 

Boston Oval ....... .4 

Onliwon iy R 

This gave us a clear saving of 13c per toilet 
per month, and we tried it several times in sev- 
eral places to prove it. In addition to this 
saving, we found a great many other advan- 
tages in this package — one, and the most im- 
portant one, was the fact that the rack could 
be refilled with a new roll before the other 
was out, and it required no mechanical de- 
vice whatever to operate it; also that it was 
impossible to get over two sheets at a "pull." 
The paper was kept clean and in a sanitary 
condition at all times. We installed this sys- 
tem throughout the building, and were exceed- 
ingly well pleased with the results. We tried 
many other papers, some that cost as low as 
three cents per roll, but we found from a basis 
of efficiency that the above named papers were 
about the only ones worth considering of those 
that we tried. I am still unable to account for 
the fact that a roll with one thousand sheets, 
delivering two sheets at a time, should be 
more economical, and last longer than a roll 
with five hundred double sheets, delivering one 
at a time, nevertheless it seems to be a fact. 



In the matter of feather dusters, I have had 
many interesting remarks passed in communi- 
cating with managers throughout the country, 
and in one case especially, I asked the ques- 
tion, "Do you use feather dusters?" and got 
this reply, "Yes, damn 'urn," which remark 
seemed to me quite appropriate. 

We had been buying dusters of the one hun- 
dred feather 16 inch size in half dozen lots, 
at 75c each, and it seemed as though we were 
constantly buying dusters. I noticed two 
things — one that the handles were always gone, 
and the other that the dusters were thrown 
away when about half worn out. I put on 
a careful test on the dusters of different kinds 
and types, and finally selected a duster with 
150 sixteen inch tail feathers, wire bound 
with leather glove and a short stub handle, at 
$9.00 per dozen, as giving the best results, 
and this gave us a saving of about 60% on 
our duster bill, and we were able to use all 
the old dusters on the grill work in the ele- 
vators. By all means use a duster with a 
stub handle. 

In reply to a list of questions I sent to 
certain Building Managers throughout the 
country, in reference to the supplies, I found 
that they were all using cheese cloth for 
cleaning rags, paying an average of 3^c per 
yard by the bolt. I had tried cheese cloth 
but gave it up when I found that I could 
buy clean, white, sanitary rags in bales at 
6c per pound, and that these rags saved me 
over 50% of my cheese cloth bill, and, in ad- 
dition, to my great surprise, found that after 
their usefulness up stairs was over, if they 
were washed, they made excellent cleaning 
rags for the machinery in the basement; so 
we not only saved in cost of the cheese cloth, 
but almost entirely eliminated the cost of 
waste in the engine room. We distributed 
the rags in one pound lots. 

Next, I found that we had been buying our 

6 



toilet soap from the barber shop in the build- 
ing. This was the soap that was left over 
after a person took a bath, and as each bather 
was furnished a new one ounce bar in its 
original package, there was considerable left, 
for which pieces we paid one cent a cake. 
After devoting a little time to this, I found 
that I could buy toilet soap of an excellent 
quality in two ounce packages at three dol- 
lars per gross, and have the name of the 
building on each cake, also a special color 
that would not be sold to any one else in 
town, so that we could distinguish our soap 
wherever found. This fact soon became 
noised around town, and we found that our 
soao supply lasted from two to three times 
longer than previously. Our janitors have 
instructions to pick this soap up whenever 
found in the offices and replace it in the 
toilet rooms, as we supply soap in the toilet 
rooms only, and allow the Towel Supply 
Company to furnish it in the offices. I am 
doing much better than this now, however, 
but still retaining the color scheme. By mak- 
ing a contract with the Towel Supply Com- 
pany, giving them exclusive rights in the 
building, they furnish us twenty-five clean 
towels every day for use in our toilet rooms, 
and sell us the same soap at $2.00 per gross, 
for which we had been paying $3.00. 

The mop question is a much debated propo- 
sition, and I am sure that every Building Man- 
ager will be interested in our solution of this 
problem. We were paying 50c to 70c each 
for cotton string mops with handles, and car- 
ried no stock on hand, from the fact that each 
janitor or janitress wanted a different weight 
and a different size according to their strength 
and ability to handle it. I had been told to 
buy mop yarn in bales. After some careful 
study and making many inquiries, I found I 
could buy mop yarn in balls from the Estes 
Mills Company, Fall River, Mass., at 12^c per 



pound, and could make up any size or weight 
of mop that I needed, eliminating the necessity 
of carrying a large stock and many sizes. 
This required getting a mop stick that would 
hold the strands of the mop without their 
being sewed. This I found in the Ely mop 
stick number 8, which fastened and held the 
mop yarn tightly without being sewed, and the 
stick outlasted many mops. 

We had been using sweeping compound on 
the floors of the corridors, and in the bank- 
ing room, and were paying from $3.50 to $6.00 
per barrel for it, and being French, like my 
friend Doyle, I was sure that somebody was 
buying Standard Oil stock with his profits 
from this gold brick, so I tried different meth- 
ods of making this ourselves, and found that 
by taking some good, hardwood sawdust 
mixed with one-third clean river sand sprin- 
kled with a good grade of disinfectant and 
some coal oil, a mighty good sweeping com- 
pound was produced, and gave the desired re- 
sults at a cost of about 50c per wagon load. 
I might add that I have since discarded the 
use of sweeping compound entirely; having 
found that it was really of not much practical 
use. 

We used push brooms on the tile floors of 
the corridors, and paid $2.75 each for a twenty- 
four inch Russian bristle brush with a pretty 
red back and handle. I kept my eyes open 
on this for over a year, and talked with every- 
one I thought knew anything about brooms or 
brushes, but to no avail, until I accidentally 
found one that entirely suited my every need, 
being manufactured right in Little Rock at 
$12.00 per dozen, and also found that these 
same brooms were being supplied to all the 
large wholesalers, but it took me over a year 
to find it. I received a little post card once 
that particularly applies to this push broom 
proposition, and on the post card was printed 
in red letters, "I'll do anything once; if I like 

8 



it I'll do it again" — and this I thought was 
particularly applicable to the purchasing of 
supplies. 

With reference to corn brooms, I must say 
I have had little, if any, success in economy, 
except that I can now look at a broom and 
judge pretty well how good or bad it is. I 
find that a good, clean corn broom at about 
$5.50 per dozen with five strings or a metal 
cap will give me the best service I have been 
able to get. 

In the matter of powdered soap, I have been 
experimenting carefully for nearly a year, and 
have tried many kinds and makes and am still 
searching for something better. The best re- 
sults I have been able to obtain have been with 
Wyandotte Detergent, made by the J. B. Ford 
Company, for the tile floors, which costs about 
4c per pound, Marblica, made by the India 
Alkali Works, for the marble, and Lustro, 
made by Armour and Company, for the wood 
work. Where the tile and marble floors cover 
considerable area, and where the corridors 
are wide and long, I strongly recommend the 
use of the scrubbing machine and water ab- 
sorber as being very economical and giving 
very good results. You need not, however, 
expect to put this machine into the hands of 
an inexperienced janitor to work out his own 
problem with it — it requires careful and sys- 
tematic operation and instruction in handling 
it in order to get the desired results. It is 
queer how some things come up unexpectedly, 
and from what sources they originate. When 
I wrote the first copy of this paper, I made 
a note in it to this effect: 

"Right here I want to ask some one who 
has found a real successful window cleaner 
to let me hear from him, as I have not 
been able to do so." 

This was about four weeks ago, and a few 
days after, a young man from the bank walked 



into my office and showed me a little package 
that he called a window cleaner, and asked if 
1 had ever tried it. I told him no, that it did 
not look good to me, bnt that I would be very 
glad to give it a trial. He said a friend of his 
had bought two or three cases at a railroad 
wreck, and if I could use it, he would make me 
a very low price. I turned it over to the win- 
dow washer, and am pleased to advise that his 
records show that he was able to wash, clean 
and polish most successfully over 150 windows 
with this one package of "Aisa" window 
cleaner, which cost me 3 T / 2 c per package, and 
I found that the windows were thoroughly 
cleaned and had a very fine polish. I also dis- 
covered that the reason he had to stop when 
this number of windows were washed was be- 
cause the cloth wrapper or bag had worn out. 
He is now experimenting with another bag on 
the outside of the original package and uses it 
this way. I am quite sure that this is going 
to solve the window cleaning problem, but 
nevertheless, I would still like to hear from 
some one who has successfully met this prob- 
lem. 

Most buildings have to use considerable 
metal polish and it is very expensive, and very 
easily wasted. I think perhaps, I am some- 
what of a crank about having metal around 
the building clean and polished and kept that 
way — and for this reason, I have been more 
careful in trying to find a good polish that 
would keep bright for the longest period of 
time. I have tried everything that has been 
brought to my notice and found that I got 
very good results from using Pix unburnable 
metal polish. This polish gives a high luster 
— is unburnable — does not evaporate, and does 
not contain ammonia or other acids that are 
unpleasant to use. It puts on a finish that lasts 
an unusually long time, and costs about 70c 
per gallon. I find also that if you will take a 
piece of cotton cloth soaked in castor oil, and 

10 



rub it over the surface of the brass just after it 
is polished, then rub the brass off thoroughly 
with a dry rag, that a thin coat of oil will have 
formed over the brass, preserving it in this 
condition for a very long time. 

Almost every building supplies towels in the 
toilet rooms. My experience has been that 
quite a number of these towels are missing 
from time to time, and at the end of a year, 
it makes quite a fair size item. To overcome 
this stealing in my present building, I bought a 
special towel rack that locked the towels on 
the roller bar with a key, making it impossible 
for any one to take a towel off the rack with- 
out a key, or without cutting it, which it is 
improbable they will do. 

Next, I took up the engine room, and here, 
gentlemen, I had to fight for every concession. 
The engineer was an old time steam man, and 
was absolutely sure that he knew all there 
was to be known in that end of the business, 
and would not allow any upstart to tell him 
or show him what he ought to do. He was 
not very much pleased with my being put in 
charge, and was therefore not inclined to as- 
sist me very much, but after studying the 
man and the conditions for a while, I insisted 
on certain reforms and radical changes in the 
installation and general system of handling 
this department. We had two direct connected 
engines and generators and the erecting engi- 
neer who installed the plant had advised the 
engineer to keep a pretty good load on the en- 
gines all the time in order to make them do 
their work well. He seemed to give abso- 
lutely no consideration to the matter of effi- 
ciency, or of economy of operation. I there- 
fore proceeded at once to find out just what 
point these engines would operate most eco- 
nomically. I cut the day load down to a point 
where we got the greatest efficiency out of 
our lighting plant during the day. Then I 
went into, the boiler proposition. We were 

11 



using natural gas under a pressure of eight 
ounces at lie per thousand feet, and our rec- 
ords were showing very poor efficiency, so we 
experimented first with one boiler for a month, 
then the other, changing the burners, draft, 
and damper connections, baffle and fire walls, 
until we found how we could get the greatest 
efficiency at the least cost, and in this experi- 
ment found that we could get much better re- 
sults from home made burners than from any 
of the manufactured ones that we had seen or 
tried, and we cut our gas bill from $355.00 per 
month to $256.00. I made these tests by check- 
ing the reading of the wall meters, which I 
had put on each generator panel of the switch- 
board, and the water meter on the boiler feed 
line against the gas meter. 

I noticed that we were using considerable 
cylinder oil in the engines — about two barrels 
per month, at 80c per gallon, using twenty- 
eight drops per minute in the larger engine 
and twenty-two drops per minute in the small- 
er engine. This seemed considerable to me, 
but the engineer insisted this was the least 
amount of oil on which he could run this en- 
gine safely. Not being satisfied, however, I 
wrote to the makers of the engines and asked 
their recommendation as to the kind of oil 
to use, and how to tell when the engines were 
receiving the right amount of oil. They took 
pleasure in telling me all I wanted to know on 
this point, and in trying to put their recom- 
mendation into practice, notwithstanding the 
economy that would possibly result, and that 
no possible harm could come to the engine, 
if carefully watched, the engineer became very 
antagonistic and took the matter over my head 
to the President of the Building Company, 
telling him that he had been an engineer all 
his life, and knew more about engines in a 
minute than I did in a week, and that if I was 
allowed to proceed, I would surely ruin the 
engines, and cause the Building Company con- 

12 



siderable annoyance and expense. I insisted, 
however, and after some threatening, tried the 
scheme out, and in a month we had cut the 
supply of oil to the large engine from twenty-, 
eight drops per minute to six drops per min- 
ute, and on the small engine, from twenty-two 
drops to four drops per minute, and the engines 
were running with plenty of oil, and to the best of 
my knowledge are still running this way. Oil 
to most men is an unknown quantity, and its 
sale mostly depends on how good a fellow the 
salesman is, or whether he belongs to the 
same lodge. There is a simple test that you 
may apply to the different oils you use to try 
their lubricating qualities. 

Procure as many light watch crystals as you 
have samples, fill each of the crystals with a 
different oil, and place them in an oven tem- 
perature, say 75 or 80 Fahr. In the course of 
a few days, giving them an opportunity to ab- 
sorb oxygen, test by taking an ordinary pin 
with a large head, dip the head end .of the 
pin into the center of the oil, lifting it up 
slowly, you will then notice that there is a 
good deal of difference between them.' Some 
will drop clean off the head of the pin, others 
will string out, connecting the pin to the sur- 
face of the oil; while others have become so 
thick that the pin head will attach itself to the 
heavy coating on the surface of the oil, so 
that the crystal and its contents can be almost 
lifted up and held in suspension. 

Amongst the various samples, try castor oil 
and ordinary kerosene, you will notice that 
both of those named will free themselves from 
the pin head at once — the first named some- 
what slowly, by reason of its natural viscosity, 
and the second quickly, by reason of its fluid- 
ity. The reason for this is that the castor oil 
and kerosene do not absorb oxygen freely, and 
therefore do not thicken. The castor oil will, 
in the course of time, become rancid, but its 
lubricating qualities are not greatly injured by 

13 



the rancidity. Kerosene, of course, has very 
little lubricating value, and the comparison is 
made simply to show the action of the at- 
mosphere on them. 

All the commercial lubricating oils that are 
offered today have a petroleum base, and their 
value is increased by the amount of animal 
or vegetable fat they contain. The animal 
fats are tallow, lard oil, fish oil, and neats- 
foot oil. The vegetable oils are more numer- 
ous, such as olive, palm, cotton, corn, rape, 
etc., etc. All the above mentioned fats can 
be readily mixed with the mineral or petro- 
leum oils, the mixing of which is an art in 
itself, and no general receipt can be given for 
combining them. As a rule most of them are 
mixed together in a heated condition; if mixed 
cold, they will not hold in solution, owing to 
the difference in their specific gravity. The 
temperature varies in every case, and with 
each different fat. Castor oil will not mix 
with petroleum oils under any condition. 

The oil that will not readily absorb oxygen 
is a good lubricant, and the oil that does so, is 
a poor one. The oil that absorbs oxygen 
freely, fires spontaneously, and becomes a 
source of danger. Linseed oil, rape oil, olive 
oil, lard oil, tallow oil, will fire spontaneously, 
with a slight rise in temperature. Saturate 
pieces of cotton waste with each of those 
named, press all the oil out of the cotton waste 
until it is comparatively dry, place the different 
samples of saturated cotton waste directly 
under the sun's rays, and you will find that 
they will fire in about the order named, or 
place them in a temperature of about 90 Fahr. 
and they will fire in from four to eight hours' 
time. The greatest danger comes from the 
piece of cotton waste lightly saturated with 
linseed oil, or as is frequently the case, a mix- 
ture of linseed oil and turpentine; hence the 
great danger following the average painter, 
who carelessly throws his cotton waste about 

14 



without any thought of what may follow. 
(Hence the reason why Insurance Companies 
insist on certain precautionary measures.) 

A great many experiments have been made 
and a great deal of discussion has taken place 
over the relative value of solid and liquid 
lubricants. A great many oiling devices are 
on the market for both solid and liquid lubri- 
cants, and as a general rule, wherever a liquid 
lubricant can be fed regularly, it is better than 
a solid lubricant, unless it be on a heavy, slow 
moving bearing, whose great weight practical- 
ly squeezes all the lubricant out, hence we find 
that all heavy engine shafts are generally lubri- 
cated by solid lubricants, supplemented by an 
occasional drop of liquid. 

Makers of solid lubricants claim greater 
economy over liquid lubricants, and while this 
may be perfectly true as far as the oil account 
is concerned, the economy is procured at the 
expense of the power and fuel account. 

I think that every engine room, no matter 
how small, ought to be equipped with an oil 
filter, for any good grade of oil can be filtered 
and used over again, possibly once, and some- 
times twice, and then the residue from the fil- 
ter makes a very good lubricant for the ele- 
vator guide, if properly mixed with flake 
graphite. 

In buying an oil filter, however, I would ad- 
vise there is no economy in buying a cheap, 
imperfect one. I would strongly suggest pur- 
chasing the very best on the market, and one 
which has well made parts, and is made up on 
good mechanical lines. 

We were purchasing our water from the 
Water Corporation, and after getting a reading 
on the water meters every day for a month, I 
tried several experiments with leaky faucets, 
and these all showed such a considerable sav- 
ing that I found it expedient to have every 
leaky faucet in the building repaired at once, 
and arranged to keep them so. This reduced 

15 



our water consumption from 10,000 to 6,000 
gallons per day, which more than paid us for 
the trouble. In my present building, they 
found during construction, a number of springs 
in the sub-basement which seemed apparently 
of a good quality of water, and which it was 
contemplated pumping into the sewer. After 
some study it was decided to save this water 
for use throughout the building. 

This was done in a very simple and easy 
manner, and after having two chemical anal- 
yses made, we are using it now in the building 
for every purpose except drinking water, and 
have all we need, throwing away over 300 gal- 
lons per hour besides. This saves us over a 
hundred dollars per month water bill, and 
costs only the amount of power required to 
pump the water to the roof, which is very 
small as we would have had to pump the water 
part of the distance anyway. 

The coal question is one to which I have 
given considerable thought, possibly because I 
had an option on 4,000 acres of Liquite coal in 
Texas, which I thought would some day make 
me a little extra pin money, but my balloon 
burst, because the coal slacked so quick that 
it could not be shipped. In our country where 
it is considered that we have the best steam 
coal in the world, we are unable as yet to pur- 
chase on the B. T. U. contract basis, the deal- 
ers not having arrived at this point yet. Ar- 
kansas coal varies considerably, being high in 
B. T. U. and low in ash. It is a very fine 
steam coal, but a poor, slow burner. Being 
unable to buy on a guarantee B. T. U. basis, 
and not using coal enough to warrant having 
an analysis made, we experimented with all 
the different coals in the field for short pe- 
riods of time until we found which coal would 
evaporate the greatest amount of water per 
ton and leave the least amount of ashes. As a 
little instance of how easily a man is sometimes 
fooled in the purchase of coal, I want to tell 

16 



you that I have a little hot water heater in 
the building which works under practically the 
same conditions every day in the year, and in 
carrying on a series of coal experiments, with 
this heater, we found that one ton of coal 
costing $4.50 lasted six days and a half, while 
another ton costing $6.00 lasted twelve days, 
showing a saving of about 30% in using the 
higher price coal. In plants that are not 
equipped to get fairly accurate records of effi- 
ciency, I think you will find it well to check 
the coal bill with the water evaporation by 
placing a water meter on the boiler feed pipe 
and checking the coal against the water con- 
sumption, and weighing the ashes one day in 
each week. By trying the different coals under 
these conditions, you can get a very good idea 
of which coal will give you the greatest effi- 
ciency. 

Now, if you have arrived at a point where 
you are fairly sure about your coal condition, 
start experimenting with your fireman until 
you get him to a point where he knows how 
to keep a good, even thin fire, and get every 
possible atom of efficient heat out of the coal. 

We could talk this coal question from now 
till Kingdom come, and I believe that even 
then there would be some question left unan- 
swered, so I will pass over the balance, and 
let these suggestions suffice for this dark sub- 
ject. 

Some Building Managers may contend that 
the oil used on your elevator machinery has no 
effect on the elevator service, but I am quite 
sure that it has, and find that I can get better 
operation out of the elevators because of the 
lubricating quality of certain oils. I believe 
castor machine oil is most generally used in 
the worm gears of the electric elevators, but 
I found after experimenting with different oils 
that vegetable castor oil was much the best 
lubricant. I have tried many experiments, and 
asked lots of questions of the elevator manu- 

17 



iacturers, discovering" finally that two parts of 
number 2 castor oil mixed with one part of 
good dynamo oil, and this whole mixed with 
one-tenth part of flake graphite, gives excellent 
results — is a good lubricant, and needs to be 
changed but once a year. When you change 
this oil, if you will mix it again with another 
portion of graphite, you will find it gives excel- 
lent and economical results as a guide rail 
lubricant. 

No doubt you have had trouble with lamps 
being stolen throughout the building. I have 
never heard of the problem being solved, and 
I don't know whether my solution is original 
or not; if it is, I hope you will all adopt it, and 
that you will find it is successful in keeping your 
lamps. Some tenants do not seem to have the 
least hesitancy about taking incandescent 
lamps out of the building for use in their own 
homes, and thousands of homes are constantly 
supplied with these lamps by the office buildings 
of the country. 

. When I purchased our lamps we made a con- 
tract to have every lamp etched with our name 
in a circle around the tip end, which showed 
up very clearly and we figured that it would 
be improbable that a man would, care to have 
a lamp with our name on it in his parlor; to 
say the least, it looks rather out of place, and 
we induced the Electric Light Company to 
work with us to overcome the theft of lamps, 
and they instructed their employees that if any 
etched lamps were brought to them for ex- 
change, that they would refuse to exchange 
them, and would take the name of the party 
presenting them and turn it over to us. This 
immediately, so far as we can tell, stopped all 
tendency to steal lamps from our building. 

No doubt a great many of you have con- 
sidered the question of baling the waste paper 
from your building, and I believe it would 
be a very good thing to do, and am just about 
to install one in our building. I find that I 

18 



can sell the waste paper in bales, F. O. B. 
St. Louis, at a minimum of 42^c per hundred, 
and that it can be baled and shipped with all 
expenses paid for about 20c per hundred. We 
therefore expect to realize about 20c per hun- 
dred pounds. The only bad feature is the 
fact that we are obliged to find storage room 
for a carload of paper; this proposition, how- 
ever, I think can be worked out in a satis- 
factory manner. I have before me a report 
from the Nicholos & Spitzer Buildings, Toledo, 
Ohio, who have had their presses in for some 
time. I understand that they received about 
20c per hundred pounds, or $4.00 per ton from 
a local junk man, who called every morning 
and removed the paper prior to their putting 
in a waste baler. After putting in the baler, 
however, . they sold it at $8.00 per ton, and 
ai this price it shows the following revenue; 

In six months they sold 26,000 pounds in 
one building for $106.80, with a net cost of 
$5.00 for freight and expense leaving them 
a net return of $101.80 or $203.60 in one year. 
The other building sold 37,200 pounds of pa- 
per for $148.80, with a total expense of $5.00 
for freight, etc., etc., leaving a net return for 
a year of $287.60. 

I have before me some figures compiled by 
one of the paper press manufacturers which 
gives the average statement of twenty-two 
users of paper baling presses, and for your 
information, I give you this report as it was 
given to me: 

Average time presses in use, 11 months. 

Average number of pounds of paper baled, 
28,007. 

Average gross returns, $118.50. 

Average cost of freight and expense, $9.45. 

Average net returns, $109.05. 

Average net returns, annually, $157.86. 

Average net returns on the investment, 
243%. 

19 



Also beg to submit herewith a general re- 
port of paper baled and sold from nineteen 
states, as follows: 

Connecticut Iowa 

Illinois Ohio 

Kentucky Maine 

New Jersey New Hampshire 

New York Indiana 

Pennsylvania South Dakota 

Tennessee Michigan 

Massachusetts Minnesota 

West Virginia Wisconsin 

Average time presses were in use, eleven 
months, average number of pounds of paper 
baled, 23,225; average gross returns, $92.45, 
average cost freight and expense, $7.08; av- 
erage net returns, $85.37; average net returns 
annually, $98.82; average net returns on in- 
vestment of 134 presses, 152%. 

Personally this looks to me like a very 
profitable investment, even though there were 
no cash returns at all, the mere fact of having 
the paper securely baled and the building kept 
free from litter and refuse from this source, 
would seem overwhelmingly in favor of the 
paper baler. 

Last summer at Texarkana, I thought I 
would get ahead of the paper baler people, by 
using one of the many hay balers that are 
on the market, and save about $35.00 or $40.00, 
but after going into the matter very carefully, 
I found that it took a different type of ma- 
chine to bale waste paper than it did to 
bale hay; so I proved to be more of a farmer 
than I suspected. 

There are so many systems of purchasing 
supplies, and keeping records of them, that 
it is difficult to set down any hard and fast rule 
by which to work. I find, however, that every 
manager I wrote to uses a requisition from the 
supply room, and a written order to the dealer. 
In my own case, I keep all the supplies in one 

20 



room in the basement in charge of engineer, under 
lock and key. All material is purchased, on re- 
ceipt of requisition, by the office on numbered 
written orders, in triplicate. The original goes to 
dealer, duplicate remains in office, filed under 
"supplies heading," and triplicate goes to supply 
room where it remains on file until goods are re- 
ceived when it is checked, OKd and returned to 
office to be filed with invoice and voucher. The 
invoice is thus easily checked by this triplicate 
copy. Every piece of material is checked in the 
supply room and kept in its proper place. 

For keeping a record of supplies going out, I 
am just working out a system, the idea of which 
was conceived from the McCasky Register Sys- 
tem, Alliance, Ohio. The form is like a grocery 
charge tab, containing space for item, amount, 
weight, floor, and a forwarding and balance col- 
umn. We use one of these sheets for each kind 
of article and at the end of each month or period 
we have an exact record of supplies used on each 
floor, a permanent inventory and constant check, 
the recapitulation of which makes interesting 
study matter. I cannot give you the actual re- 
sults from practice on this system as yet, but 
hope to be able to do so in a few months. I have 
studied it very carefully and believe it will meet 
every need successfully. All the old tools, sup- 
plies, lamps, etc., must be returned to the supply 
room before new articles are issued. 

We have a card index purchasing record and 
keep records of purchase, date, quantity, 
freight, drayage, and other necessary items for 
future information. 

In closing, allow me to say that every manager 
has hundreds of different articles presented to 
him every year, and he should be always open to 
be convinced of the merits or demerits of every 
one, to carefully test and try each new product, 
for there is no telling which piece of the cake 
contains the plums. Cost is a secondary consid- 
eration where efficiency is evident. I have had 

21 



many other interesting deductions, but would not 
think of taking up more of your time just now. 

For your information, I will say that through 
the application of the above practices I was able 
to reduce the operating expense in eight months' 
time from $2,154 per month to less than $1,100, 
and the installation of systematic operation in- 
creased the efficiency, cleanliness, and general con- 
duct of the building to such a marked degree that 
everybody sat up and took notice, and in a short 
time its vacant offices were being sought instead 
of seeking. 

In my present building the introduction of many 
new and exceptionally economical ideas during 
construction, and the same thorough system of 
operation and control, has practically rilled the 
building before its completion and moved the busi- 
ness section several blocks to our corner. I thank 
you for your kind attention. 




22 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



5 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

mm 

014 632 850 7 * 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 632 850 7 




